Naoto Ohshima
|birth_place=Japan |occupation=Character designer, game producer }} (born February 26, 1964) is a Japanese artist and former Sega employee who is best known for his original character designs of Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman from Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog series. Although Yuji Naka created the original tech demo around which Sonic's gameplay was based, the character in his prototype was a ball that lacked any specific features. Sonic Team considered numerous potential animal mascots before deciding on Ohshima's design, with an armadillo or hedgehog being the top choices because their spikes worked well with the concept of rolling into enemies. History After leaving Sonic Team, Ohshima formed an independent game company called Artoon. There he went on to work on such games ''as Pinobee, Yoshi, Mitchell Van Morgan and Blinx: The Time Sweeper, and in 2004, the sequel to Blinx, Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space. In 2010, Artoon was absorbed into AQ Interactive. That same year, he and other key members of Artoon left to form Arzest. Early in his career, he was credited under the nickname "Big Island", which is a literal translation of his family name. Production history * Phantasy Star (1987) — Designer * Space Harrier 3-D (1988) — Art Designer * SpellCaster (1988) — Designer * Phantasy Star II (1989) — Designer * Tommy Lasorda Baseball (1989) — Fielder Designer * Last Battle (1989) — Art Director * Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) — Character Design * Fatal Labyrinth (1991) — Designer * Sonic Eraser (1991) — Special Thanks * Sonic CD (1993) — Director * SegaSonic the Hedgehog (1993) — Special Thanks * Knuckles' Chaotix (1995) — Original Character Concept * Sonic 3D Blast (1996) — Advisor * Nights into Dreams... (1996) — Director, Nights Designer * Christmas Nights (1996) — Director, Visual Designer * Sonic R (1997) — Graphic Advisor * Sonic Jam (1997) — Supervisor * Burning Rangers (1998) — Director, Character Designer, Graphic Artist * Sonic Adventure (1998) — Story Event Motion Designer, Story Event Coordinator, CG Movie Producer, Opening Movie Editor * Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (2001) — Director * The King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood (2002) — Art Directors * Ghost Vibration (2002) — Game Designer * Blinx: The Time Sweeper (2002) — Director * Mitchell Van Morgan 6 (2003) — Director * Mitchell Van Morgan 7 (2003-2004) — Director, Artist * Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space (2004) — Director * Yoshi's Universal Gravitation (2004) — Producer * Yoshi's Island DS (2006) — Senior Producer * Blue Dragon (2006) — Executive Producer * Mitchell Van Morgan 8 (2006-2007) — Director, Artist * Vampire Rain (2007) — Producer * Lost Odyssey (2007) — Special Thanks * Away: Shuffle Dungeon (2008) — Character Designer * FlingSmash (2010) — Senior Producer * Mitchell Van Morgan 9 (2010) — Director, Artist, Character Designer * Sonic Generations (2011) — Special Thanks * Yoshi's New Island (2014) — Development Producer * Terra Battle (2015) — Character Designer * Mitchell Van Morgan 10 (2015-2016) — Director, Artist, Art Directors, Supervisor * Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (2016) — Supervisor References External links *Out of the Blue: Naoto Ohshima Speaks *Sega Stars: Naoto Ohshima Artoon Category:Sega people Category:Living people Category:Video game artists Category:Japanese video game designers Category:1964 births